Charles Beard: "Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany," Ch. 5, 16...

1.     Tracking Luther’s heights and depths—sloughs of despondency to senses of liberty and back to petty scrupulosities—is a bit of a task. For a psychiatrist? Yet, he began to find here-and-there hope in the old works of Augustine, fathers and schoolmen. He had little of any notable progress in Hebrew or Greek, of note. Impetuosity and ardor may have defined him. In the fall of 1508, Staupitz invited him to the Augustinian convent at Wittenberg, Wittenberg being an Elector’s seat with a Castle but still a backwater. Wittenberg will be the scene of Luther’s labors until life’s end, 1546, minus some time in Wartburg Castle. Before the later dustups, Luther taught philosophy which “he would only too willingly,” he said, "exchange for theology" (166).